Tag Archives: baker & spice

One of my birthday gifts from the husband was a cooking class at Sweetwares, which is a little baking shop in our ‘hood, owned by the fantastic people from Baker and Spice.

This was a great present, because it forced my husband into an apron

I’ve never made pasta. Partly because I’m one of the messiest cooks you’ll ever meet. Me + the classic volcano of flour with the egg in the middle dough making? It would just end poorly. And probably with at least one cat coated in flour.

But I learned in our class you can actually just make it in a food processor! Win

We made an egg dough and a spinach dough
Not going to lie, I dug on how play-dough-y the dough was. So bright!

Oh and see the bottle in the back of the picture? Totally had drinks while we cooked. Best sort of cooking.

We rolled the dough through the machines
And eventually had noodles!

Hand cut egg noodles
And spinach that we ran through the cutter
After we finished with our pasta making, it was time to eat!

See how this class involves dinner and alcohol? My husband did well.

Our instructor Jeff showed a few sauces, and then cooked up some pasta
Fresh pasta cooks absurdly fast. Like, we’re talking 30 seconds. Jeff called it “Italian top ramen” because it’s so crazy fast to cook.

510-Approximate number of minutes I’ve spent driving since Monday. I hate driving.

3-Days in a row my lunch centered around hummus

3-The number of days your diet can be hummus-centric before you get sick of it and have to get creative
1-Days it took before I was back to loving hummus again

11-Pictures on my new phone

9-Pictures on my phone that are of the cats
2-Pictures that are of cake
0-Dollars paid for delicious cake (Main Street kick-off in Hillsdale night = free cake at Baker and Spice = Heaven. I would have babies with that frosting.)

If you’ve been reading this blog for very long you know I live in Little Beirut (aka Portland, Oregon).

And if you live in PDX you may have also figured out I’m a westsider. Which is how I had no clue there were TWO Petit Provences on the eastside-thanks to my far smarter local readers for letting me know in the comments!)

I know that there’s all sorts of cool things on the eastside of Portland. I do.

But I buy my jeans at Costco. I’m not cool.

So we hang out in our hood. We like our hood. Plus, walking to dinner totally negates the calories you consume. It’s a fact. (I should add that to my rules)

So recently we had these amazing calorie free sandwiches at Caffe Autogrill

Delicious (pancetta and turkey)

And even more delicious (ham and salami)
Plus, the other perk of going places you can walk?

You both get to drink.
(The walking burns off those calories too.)

And yesterday we had a happy hour at Salvador Molly’s. We’ve been there beforea few times. Food is absurdly cheap, so you gotta get a bunch of things. Like pulled pork
and fries
and duck wings
(plus the quinoa in the background)

and tempura apples
The quarter mile walk home totally works all that off.

And if you have a few drinks with your happy hour (because again, walking = we both drink!), it’s hard to resist stopping at Baker and Spice on your way home. Especially when there’s a whoopie pie with peanut butter cream in the middle
and ganache on top.

My husband went for a food rule of his own: if it has meat, it’ll fill you up more. He had a ham and cheese croissant
I also follow the rule that if it’s cold enough to see your breath Jesus wants you to drink something warm
How pretty is the tea strainer?

And while, not going to lie, I tend to put splenda in my drinks (because otherwise I’d eat enough sugar to kill a puppy before 9 am), Baker & Spice has the cute lumps of sugar
And I have a rule that when you see the cute lumps of sugar, you have to use them.

I also made cookies last night for two reasons:

1. When your husband is having a busy week at work you should bake for him and

2. You should never turn down the chance to make things that give you an excuse for ball jokes.

(best points in my day: going to church and saying “boys! Don’t zombie walk to mass!” and when telling kids to draw a cross on their religion paper having one ask me “can I draw Jesus on the cross? ” Sure, you can draw a dying Jesus if you really want buddy.)

My husband was doing some presentations in town, rather than working in So-lame like normal. Between them he was home, which meant when I got home from work I had a smiling husband on the couch and these in the fridge

St Cupcake? Yes please!

There were big tops (chocolate chip with cream cheese frosting), peanut butter with fudge on top and pumpkin spice.

And a scarecrow. Which amused me to no end.

You don’t wanna know how much extra the scarecrow cost. Focus on the cute.

And because a half dozen cupcakes aren’t enough there was also this

A pumpkin whoopie pie! From Baker & Spice.

That’s right, TWO bakeries. The man is a keeper friends.

Especially since he’s not so into pumpkin. So I didn’t have to share two of the cupcakes or the whoopie pie!

In also good news, I booked today’s sub job yesterday afternoon, so I already had a lunch packed this morning

And ending up staying out till far too late doing this
(Does anyone else feel like they’re back in college when they have a keg cup in hand? Whats that? You’ve gotten too old for keg cups? Never mind then…)

And then going to (substitute teach at) school on Monday and sneaking in some *ahem* herbal refreshment between classes

But then I realized that in college I did things like this

And this

(that would be me. In a tutu. Twirling. I’m 20 there. And I graduated college like two weeks later. I was clearly ready to be an adult)

So really, maybe I am growing up…

Do you do anything where you feel like it makes you seem vastly not your age? I totally watch the Disney channel.